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Twin Pods cling to your legs. Time spent around the Dipodgenes has disavowed you of the notion that they are a hive mind. Soappho and her brother Lyesander set themselves apart from the rest with unmatched affection and a taste for pranks. “Soappho has told me of Washford’s avocation,” Lyesander says, pressing his jellied forehead to your leg in fear. “Pool noodle husbandry!”
Soappho sticks out a fluorescent tongue. “I said no such thing!”
“She did!”
“Don’t fear, Lyesander,” you say, stroking the poor Pod’s head, wincing as your finger catches on the seam in the plastic. “I don’t keep pool noodles — which would be, like, eels to you, I guess? — in my washing machine.”
Lyesander looks up, soapy eyes watering. “Should I believe your words?”
“If you don’t, then consider this an opportunity to exercise your bravery.”
“’Tis the truth!” exclaims Soappho, slyly grasping the opportunity to slip out of trouble. “I merely put to you a test of valor!”
Lyesander grins. “Then I shall be brave!” He joins hands with Soappho and the two of them dance around you, trilling mirthfully in unison. “Valor! Valor! Valor!”
How they can be joyful at a time like this is astonishing. It makes your heart soar as swiftly as it sends it crashing to the ground. For pool noodles or none, the Dipodgenes both still know that they shall be soon obliterated, dissolved into a frothy soup. It is laundry day, and these two have been elected to confront the second load.
The first battle of the day is winding to a close, the cries of the Dipodgenes’ brethren having long since faded. In the interim, Tydus has taken a knee in the corner. She is bedraggled, pink strands flying from her ponytail and remnants of stains of dirt and food dotting her lovely face. A weary darkness crosses her brow, and she mutters to herself. “Be these the stains to which I fin’ly yield?” she says. Even her private musings are audible across the room, booming and ever articulate as her voice is. “Within my mind’s own eye, I see / us humbled ‘fore the enemy. ‘No more’ we cry, to leave the filth and body odor on the field.”
How can you dare to grieve, when your love has been beaten down by so many losses before this? You wish you could comfort her; you’ve tried before, this very morning, even, and you know for a fact that you don’t have the words.
Soappho follows your gaze to Tydus. “Has the general’s time of respite passed?” she asks, tugging at your sleeve. “We wish to make the final preparations and to be into the washer cast!”
“Why don’t we go ask her?” You take Lyesander by the hand and Soappho follows close at your heels as you walk over to Tydus.
Now is the wrong time to swoon, but it is impossible to not be at least silently overcome by Tydus’s sweet scent and the fact that even kneeling, she nearly comes up to your shoulder. She hears your footsteps and looks up at you with a fraught expression. But when she sees that the Dipodgenes have joined you, her face hardens and softens all at once. You read in her face the turmoil that runs deep through her, the battle between her conflicting roles of mother and general. The affection and admiration she feels for Soappho and Lyesander. Her resolve before the knowledge that she must soon lose them.
And she won’t lose them forever. That’s something you’ve had to keep reminding yourself, to keep yourself from suffering as the Dipodgenes’ new step-parent. You recall what Skylar taught you about an object’s animus, the thing that makes it impossible for them to truly die. Tydus may give a lot of speeches about sacrifice, but those sacrifices are only temporary. Soappho and Lyesander’s spirits live on in all laundry pods, and the next time you buy a new box, they and every Pod gone to the wash will pop out whole and every bit themselves.
Then again, you don’t do laundry that often. It has been a while since a new box, and in the meantime, the ranks of the Dipodgenes have been dwindling, slowly and agonizingly. Tydus has not seen her eldest in months. She leads you, Soappho, and Lyesander in Stone, Parchment, Shears, which as you have come to understand is not training at all, but an effort to make sure she has plenty of memories of her Pods happy and at play.
You put your hand out in a flash. Flat and perfectly parallel to the ground, it is a proud Parchment. Soappho and Lyesander have no sooner joined in their own formation, modified for two rather than an army. They hold each other at the waist, each with one arm raised and flapping in the air. They bring those arms together around your hand, miming as their Shears rip your Parchment to bits. You howl in defeat and the Pods laugh.
“The sweet scraps of victory!” they proclaim in unison. “Prepared are we, to sail into the foamy breach!” They start dancing, still holding each other tightly.
Tydus looks on in approval. Watching her, you notice a sad smile hiding beneath her mask.
The time is soon now. Soappho and Lyesander are sitting on the lip of Washford’s detergent receptacle, and you wait with them while Tydus makes her final preparations. She inspects the second load of laundry, sizing it up against Washford’s bulk and the stain-removing capacity of her two waiting soldiers. She is careful not to rest her eyes on them for too long — so done, and she might lose her will to go through with this battle.
You understand. You miss them already, yourself. You can’t help but adjust Lyesander’s crooked cape, making sure the two of them look their best while charging into battle.
At last, Tydus and Washford bow sternly to each other, and she gives you a nod. You nod back, and with one last deep inhale of your babies’ spring breeze perfume, you open the receptacle.
Soappho and Lyesander hoot and cheer as they plunge themselves into the water. You close the lid over the faint sound of their laughter dissolving into screams, and a grim tear slips from your eye as you walk away.
They’ll have forgotten the pain once they come back.
You go to Tydus, who stands sentinel over the battle. At a distance, but at attention. Her chest is out and her chin is raised, and her hand grips her the hilt of her sheathed blade tightly. She seems proud of a campaign well fought, but you notice the tremor in her legs.
“Tydus. My love,” you say, softly. “It’s done. You don’t need to watch it happen.”
“On the contrary,” comes Tydus’s reply. “The battle’s sudshed must be witnessed, lest its horrors we forget.”
“Come on. You’ve done your job,” you plead, grabbing her hand, the one not holding her sword.
“My job is never done. The cycle of washing doth spin and spin / so we retread. At endings, we begin.” Tydus’s words are stern, but her fingers lace through yours regardless.
You think of Soappho’s laugh, and Lyesander’s shy smile. Arifrothenes’s drive and Ajax’s dances. You think of their delightful brothers and sisters who still stand, and the prospect of saying goodbye to all of them in the same way becomes too much to bear. “And if it doesn’t have to be that way?” you say, selfish. “How about… how about next time I buy liquid detergent?”
“And forsake the convenience of the Pods? Prithee, make not so foolish a pivot.”
“I could do laundry less often!” you implore. “Or… or more often, I suppose. Please, Tydus. Whatever it takes to stop putting you through so much pain.”
“Your offer of aid is acknowledged, my love,” says Tydus. Still she looks forwards, towards the churning machine where her battle is fought. “Alas, ‘less you yearn to live as cavefolk, unwashed, our pain is our calling. And to live unwashed is to rob us of purpose.”
You bite your lip. If Tydus doesn’t want solutions, then you don’t know what other comfort you can offer her. You rest your head against her arm and fight not to cry.
In the silence, Tydus lets out a sigh. Her eyes are still dry, but something in her stature has deflated. Her height has been reduced from awesome to merely mighty. “The day has been long, and I find myself weak in spirit. Your aid may still be welcomed…” You feel her fingers under your chin, and you look up. Tydus has finally pulled her eyes away from the machine, meeting your gaze. “Remember Soappho and Lyesander with me, and upon their return, we shall celebrate them as champions.”
“That I can do,” you say, and the two of you sit on the laundry room floor, sharing memories of Tydus’s beloved Pods over the rumble of the washing machine and the sloshing and frothing of the battle well-fought.